A HISTORY OF LANCASHIRE 



solicitor. Though he was clearly only trustee, 

 he had the assurance to claim the mills and lands 

 as his own in a suit in the Duchy Court against 

 his co-feofiFees, Hugh and Joan Bexwyk, and 

 Lord De La Warr had to give a certificate to the 

 chancellor of the duchy, 1 8 May, 1523, that 

 Hulme had only obtained the property as a 

 trustee 



for and to the use and towards the foundacion and 

 mayntenaunce of a free scole for the techyng of 

 gramer in Manchester, which free scole as by reporte 

 and saying of the said Rauff, the said Hugh and 

 Johane Beswyke entented and purposed to founde 

 maynteyn and upholde and the better by reason of the 

 said purchase, yf he myght opteyn it of me to their 

 use for the purpose and entent aforseid. 



Lord De La Warr said he sold it 



for the some of ^^8 and not above, to my remem- 

 braunce ... for he shold not have bought the pre- 

 mysses of me to his owne use nor to none other 

 entent than towards the furtherance of the said Scole 

 as is aforsaid, and though he should have gyven rae 

 C. //. 



He complained that the including of Hulme's 

 own lands as part of the security for the rent 

 was put in by Hulme of his own device and not 

 in response to any demand by Lord De La Warr. 

 This certificate was further enforced by a Latin 

 deed of 12 July, 1523, by which Lord De La 

 Warr, ' with the intention that the lands and 

 tenements comprised in the deed of 1509 might 

 go to the use and profit of the free school of 

 Manchester ' [/there scole de Mannchester), released 

 the rent secured to him by the deed of 1509, 

 in order that the lands of Ralph Hulme might be 

 discharged from any liability for it, and a new 

 deed was made securing the rent only on the 

 school property. This new deed does not ap- 

 pear to be extant. But it was probably in 

 consequence of this claim by Hulme and the re- 

 settlement which it involved that the otherwise 

 inexplicable deed of i April, 1525, was executed, 

 which is commonly regarded as the foundation 

 deed of the school. This time the deed is in 

 English, and its preamble makes it clearer than 

 before that Hugh Oldham was the real founder, 

 and the Bexwyks, at the most, subordinate bene- 

 factors, if indeed they were that. But the strange 

 thing about it is that, while by the foundation 

 deed of 1 5 1 5 the warden and fellows of Man- 

 chester were made the trustees and governing 

 body, or in their default the abbot of Whalley, 

 by this new English deed an entirely new body 

 of twelve lay trustees or feoffees was constituted. 

 The whole constitution was remodelled on a 

 scheme of divided responsibility. Thus the ap- 

 pointment of the head master and usher was 

 given, not to Manchester College, but to the 

 president of Corpus Christi College, Oxford, 

 though it is true the warden of Manchester 

 indirectly received the power of dismissal and. 



instead of the abbot of Whalley, the power of 

 appointment in default, as well as certain other 

 governing powers; while the abbot of Whalley 

 came in to name the receiver of the school and to 

 be one of four persons to have a key of the school 

 chest or treasury. The feoffees were made a co- 

 optative body, to be renewed whenever they sank 

 to four, by the election of* honest gentilmen and 

 honest persons within the parisshe of Manchester.' 

 Their duties were confined to holding the pro- 

 perty and managing it ; they were empowered 

 to give leases for terms of ten years only. No 

 explanation of this re-settlement is vouchsafed in 

 the deed, no reference whatever being made to 

 the former deed of iSiS- 



The most probable solution of the difficulty is 

 that the original deed was void for lack of a 

 licence in mortmain, and that in view of the 

 adverse claim made by Hulme it was thought 

 desirable to have a re-settlement and avoid the 

 statute of mortmain by vesting the property in a 

 number of lay feoffees instead of in an ecclesias- 

 tical corporation.' 



The second deed is certainly the more inter- 

 esting because the * actes, ordinaunces, provisions, 

 constitucions, articles, appoyntments and agre- 

 ments ' on which the property was to be held 

 are set out in a schedule in English instead of in 

 Latin, and on a much more extensive scale. 

 The preamble, as already stated, offers conclusive 

 evidence that, whatever share the Bexwyks may 

 have had, the real founder was Oldham. 



Where the Right Reverend Father in God Hughe 

 Oldome, late Bishoppe of Exeter, decessed, considering 

 — it is no longer in the plural, ' the parties to the 

 deed,' but Oldham alone — that the bringyng upp of 

 childerne in their adolesency and to occupie theym 

 in good lernyng and maners from and owte of idylnes 

 is the cheifFe cause to advaunce knawledgeand lernyng 

 them, when thei shall come to the age of virilitie, or 

 wherby thei may the better knowe, love, honor, and 

 dredegood [sic] and his lawes, and for that the liberall 

 science or arte of Gramier is the grounde and fon- 

 tayne of all the other liberale artes and sciencys wiche 

 sourde and spryng owte of the same, without wiche 

 scyence the other cannot perfitely be hadde, for science 

 of gramyer is the yeate by the wiche all other ben 



' Whatton's suggestion that the re-settlement showed 

 the wise foresight of the persons interested in the 

 school, who substituted a lay for a clerical governing 

 body in anticipation of the dissolution of monastic 

 houses, is not very happy. Manchester College was a 

 secular body, like Winchester and Eton, Corpus 

 Christi College and St. George's, Windsor, and no 

 one in 1525 could have foreseen the dissolution of 

 the monasteries, not to mention secular colleges. It 

 should be noted that in 1525 to the abbot of Whalley 

 was still assigned the important function of appointing 

 the school receiver, and that the warden of Manchester 

 occupied the same position with reference to the High 

 Master — except that he was not concerned in his 

 appointment or in the management of the estates — as 

 the Provost of Eton and the Warden of Winchester 

 occupied in those schools. 



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